Moot point? —

4chan adopts DMCA policy after nude celebrity photo postings

Site agrees to remove "bona fide" infringing material if asked.

In the wake of the release of stolen, intimate photos from a number of celebrities’ cell phones this past weekend on 4chan’s /b/ Web forum, the site has added something to its rules and policies—a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown policy. While 4chan previously relied on its rapid expiration of content to keep 4chan LLC and site founder Chris “moot” Poole out of trouble, the heavy scrutiny that came from the latest round of celebrity exposure has pushed the site to adopt more formal measures to avoid litigation. (Victims of photo theft could use copyright claims to seek damages from publications and websites that publish them.)

Under the policy, 4chan will now remove content when notified of a “bona fide infringement” under the law. The site will also contact the individual posting the content to tell this user it has been removed. “It is the Company’s policy…that repeat offenders will have the infringing material removed from the system and that the Company will terminate such content provider’s, member’s or user’s access to the service,” the policy reads. Those who believe their content has been taken down improperly can file a counter-notice with 4chan.

The DMCA policy post designates a DMCA agent for the company (though not by name) at Corporation Service Company in Wilmington, Delaware. Corporation Service Company is an organization that acts as a corporate office and compliance agent for Delaware-registered companies.

Ars attempted to contact 4chan and Poole for comment but received no reply regarding the new policy. It’s not certain how 4chan would inform members—particularly those on /b/—of infringing material, as they are by default anonymous. Poole has been a staunch defender of online anonymity. In a 2010 TED talk, he described 4chan as a “site with no memory”—because of the volume of traffic, discussions are aggressively rolled off the site into oblivion within several days. When questioned about the negative side of what happens on 4chan, he insisted that “the greater good is being served” by 4chan’s anonymity.

Promoted Comments

1. 4chan has had an auto-removal / auto-ban system for a long time. It is used entirely(?) for CP but there's no technical reason it couldn't be expanded to something else.2. Moot has said that 4chan's pseudo-anonymity is not true anonymity. He doesn't see any ideological dissonance between posters that appear to be anonymous actually leaving a trail of logs in 4chan servers. Notice that 4chan turned over all relevant IP addresses when the person who gained access to Sarah Palin's Yahoo account posted about it on 4chan. My guess is that 4chan logs are cleared regularly, after 30 days or so, but I think ban logs are permanent, even if the user later becomes unbanned. I'm pretty sure a mod has answered in some Q&A (say, on the former /q/ board) that moderators or at least administrators can see a specific IP's post history (but probably only going back a certain number of days).3. YouTube implemented Content ID because it was getting sued a lot for hosting copyrighted content. I hope and assume that Moot doesn't have to implement such a feature, but as I said it would be possible. IMO, YouTube pre-Content ID still complied with the DMCA. YT ended up in hot water because its employees were clearly aware of specific copyrighted content that they were not taking down.4. It's humorous that 4chan suggests you send a DMCA request via email. If it was sent by mail, the image in question would have been purged days before the letter was received.5. 4chan recently implemented a delayed pruning system for /v/ and /a/. Threads will remain alive for 48 hours after replies are no longer posted and they're removed from being accessible without knowing the URL. Rule-breaking threads of course still get deleted. This supplements existing third-party archives that third-party add-ons like 4chan X have made easy to access. (Foolz.us, Deniable Plausibility, etc.) So with longer periods that threads stay active a new DMCA policy may be required.6. At a certain point, if your site is large enough, you need a DMCA policy, just to obtain its safe harbor provisions.

74 posts | registered Nov 19, 2012

Sean Gallagher
Sean is Ars Technica's IT and National Security Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Emailsean.gallagher@arstechnica.com//Twitter@thepacketrat